Imagine being at the pharmacy picking up a prescription: you give the pharmacist your insurance card, fork over the $20 (or more) copay, and go on with your day.
What if you knew, though, that the medicine you just paid $20 for with your health insurance would only cost $8 without it?
Well, right now some pharmacists in Missouri may be legally prohibited from telling customers that their prescriptions could cost LESS without their insurance -- and in 2013, that added up to more than $125 million Americans overpaid for their medicine.
A recent report found that customers overpaid for prescription drugs at the pharmacy counter 23% of the time, so I made it a personal goal to fix it.
And just last week, something big happened: by a vote of ninety-eight to two, the Senate passed my bipartisan bill with Maine Republican Senator Collins, the Patient Right to Know Drug Prices Act.
What does that mean for Missourians? Well, if it passes the House and the President signs it into law (and based on this, I think he will!), this law would finally put an end to pharmacy gag clauses that can sometimes prohibit pharmacists from telling customers that they could pay less for their prescription if they pay out of pocket.
Too often in Washington, it feels like common sense takes a back seat. Because I know if we just look at the actual issues -- like how to save people money -- we can make real progress and get that done.
That's exactly what happened here, and I'm really thrilled that we could come together and get this done in a bipartisan way. It's an amazing step towards lowering Americans' prescription drug costs.
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